The subject matter described herein relates generally to the field of electronic communication and more particularly to an information transparent adaptation function for packet based network connections.
Local area networks (LANs) have allowed enterprises to operate data communication networks enabling devices such as personal computers, printers, data servers and the like to exchange data over a locally maintained transmission medium. Data links to couple these devices in a LAN typically transmit data between devices according any one of several Ethernet protocols.
Wide area networks (WANs) have enabled enterprises to couple LANs at different geographical sites to communicate through one or more high-speed data links. Such high-speed data links may be provided by a data communication service provider such as a telecommunication service provider. These high speed data links are typically part of a network backbone and formed according to a protocol such as, e.g., the “Synchronous Optical NETwork” (SONET) protocol, the “Synchronous Digital Hierarchy” (SDH) protocol, or the “Optical Transport Network” (OTN) protocol.
Transmitting data between LANs, SONET, SDH, or OTN links may involve encapsulating Ethernet frames for transmission between access ports on respective LANs. For example, an access port on a LAN may be adapted to transmit and receive data frames at a data rate of approximately 10.3 gigabits per second according to a 10 Gigabit Ethernet standard as provided in IEEE Std. 802.3ae, published June, 2002. The access port may then be coupled to a SONET link provisioned to provide data rate of about OC-192 capable of transmitting the encapsulated data frames at a data rate of about 9.5 gigabits per second. This transmission rate mismatch may pose issues when communicating between these links.